Lawmakers who spearheaded efforts to get makers of smartphones, tablet computers and communications services to better meet the needs of the disabled are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to resist industry pressure to short-circuit landmark law.

As the FCC nears an Oct. 11 deadline for a vote on ways to implement the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, commissioners are being urged by some key House and Senate Democrats to stand their ground.

The lawmakers are concerned that segments of the tech industry want to win blanket waivers for some services, shield some products from the law’s reach and delay implementation of the law.

“This sweeping new law is designed to ensure that Americans with disabilities can access the technology tools that are indispensable for full participation in the 21st century,” Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement to POLITICO. “My colleagues in the House and Senate have joined me in urging the commission to ensure that the implementing regulations are broad and do not delay or dilute the act’s provisions.”

Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), along with Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), joined Markey in writing a letter to the FCC recently, outlining their concerns that industry is attempting to use the regulatory process to dilute the impact of the CVAA. Sources told POLITICO that a draft of the rules is currently circulating among the commissioners.

During the past few weeks, tech and communications companies and their industry associations have been coming up with a wide range of reasons why regulators should excuse them from some of the new rules requiring them to consider the needs of the disabled in their products.

Manufacturing representatives refused to talk about their concerns about the commission’s action, but in comments filed with the FCC, industry representatives argue against an expansive reading of the law.

“The commission must adhere to Congress’s directive to balance the accessibility of advanced communications services with service providers’ and manufacturers’ continued ability to innovate,” wrote the Consumer Electronics Association. “Notwithstanding this clear legislative approach, some commenters seek to use the regulatory process to promote accessibility at the cost of — not in harmony with — preserving innovation.”

While the law directs companies to build products that are accessible by people with disabilities when it is technologically “achievable,” lawmakers intended to give the industry latitude in just how to do that. For example, companies can offer a comparable device or accessibility through third-party technology — like an app that, for example, can read text for the blind.

Tech companies also argue that the commission needs to be mindful that many advanced communications products or services are usually a “stack” of different technologies with different layers often made by different companies. A single company should only be responsible for its own layers, they contend.

“The laptop manufacturer cannot test every existing ACS application, service or piece of assistive technology equipment (much less predict what kinds of services and equipment will be introduced in the future) and cannot exercise control over these third parties,” Microsoft wrote in a filing with the FCC. “Consequently, the rules should make clear that the third-party developer has the accessibility obligation in this instance.”

The CVAA prevents the FCC from mandating a particular technology, but it requires the commission to develop rules that will force companies to consider the needs of the disabled as they design communications products. The FCC has to decide what falls under that mandate, whether that includes hardware, software, the interface between the two or some combination.

In August, the FCC approved a new set of video description rules as the law directed, but that may have been the easy part. The commission is now figuring out how to get the manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and communications services to consider the needs of the disabled.

Advocates for the disabled want the commission to turn down many of the industry requests for waivers and exemptions.

“The question is: Will the FCC have the backbone to implement the new law as it was meant to?” said Mark Richert, policy director for the American Foundation for the Blind. “This isn’t just about how to make phone calls, which is what the commission seems to be talking about.”

Lawmakers who pushed the bill through with the disabled community want the commission to ensure that the commission’s rules include technological innovations that are coming into vogue.

While some industry arguments seem reasonable, Richert contends that the commission should remember that people buy the whole computer or smartphone or other device — and not just one layer.

“To narrow it so much that they only go after manufacturers of hardware or software for a given device is not what Congress intended,” Richert explained.